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Monday, April 13, 2015

Veggie Patch Diner

March 25, 2015

I had another quick work trip to Sydney in late March, and used my couple of spare meals to check out the newish Veggie Patch Diner, a permanent home from Yulli's-related Veggie Patch Van. It's a cute little space - lots of clean wooden fittings, natural light, and a lovely but small courtyard out the back. They're open Wednesday-Sunday for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The menu is about 60% vegan - there's a mix of eggy and non-eggy stuff for breakfast, a burger menu for lunch and dinner and a cabinet of salads if you're feeling like something healthy.

I turned up on the way in to work ready for brekkie. The haloumi and fried egg roll ($10) tempted me, as did the baked chickpeas served on crispy polenta with smoked mushrooms ($15), but I always find myself unable to resist the lure of scrambled tofu (with mushrooms, kale and homemade tomato sauce, $14). It's a mountain of food - deliciously oily and seasoned with some sort of spice mix including turmeric and cumin. There's a good mix of veggies stirred through and a couple of pieces of decent toast buried under it all. An excellent start to the day.

A mere eight hours later and I was back for more, grabbing dinner on my way back to my hotel. After breakfast, it's really all about burgers here. There are six to choose from: zucchini and feta, haloumi, olive and almond, cajun spiced tofu and, my choice for the evening: smoked mushroom and and tempeh burger ($12 or $17 with a choice of sides - you'll see below that I chose a side of onion rings that towered over the burger).

The mushroom burger came with a couple of smoky tempeh slices, pickled banana peppers, lime and pepper mayo an apple and kale slaw and a watermelon/chipotle bbq sauce. And it was excellent - a mash up of tangy, smoky and spicy flavours and a big juicy mushroom. The onion rings were ludicrous - gigantic rings of batter with slivers of onion inside them. It's really too much batter for one person to eat in a single sitting - they're great, but you'll want to share them with a friend.

Veggie Patch Diner is a welcome addition to Sydney's vego dining scene - excellent food, friendly staff, great music on the stereo and a lovely space to hang out in. I'll definitely be back next time I'm in town.